Chapter 37:

A/N: Sorry it's been so long guys! Hopefully now that I'm on break I'll be able to post more, but we'll just have to see. I hope you like the update!

"Do you have any threes?"

"Go fish."

"Damn," I cursed. I reached forward and drew yet another card from the pile in the middle. I added it to my own to see it was—sadly—not a number that matched any of mine.

Rosalie smirked and glanced at her cards. "Do you have any sevens?"

Are you fucking kidding me?

My head dropped, I grabbed the card I had just pulled from the pile, and handed it to her. The blonde in front of me let out a victorious chortle as she plucked the card from my fingers, grabbed her matching, and placed them on the ground together. "You suck at this game, Bella."

I looked up. "This is the wrong game of cards for me," I clarified. "Start playing poker and I will have you cleaned out in less than ten minutes."

"I'm sure."

*Bing* *Bing*

I looked down at my phone as the half hour timer went off. I shut it off. "Alright!" I called. "You can let go of each other."

The vampires in the circle gave sighs of relief, let go of each other's hands, and moved as far from each other as they could. Kate settled for dropping to the floor instead of moving.

Tanya sat down behind me, but didn't touch me or get within a foot of me. Emmett had the same behavior with Rosalie, and I raised my brow looking between the two. "Are you guys really going to give us the silent treatment?" I asked.

"Maybe," Emmett huffed. "What's it to ya?"

I smiled. "Silence," I said. "Beautiful silence." I turned back to Rosalie. "I could wipe you out in poker. Just start this game over and we'll see how long you last against me."

The blonde tilted her head to the side, humming in consideration. "I do suppose I am already winning this game," she agreed. She shrugged. "Why not?"

I eagerly began to take in the cards, snatching the ones in her hands quickly and put them all into a pile. Rosalie blurred off and appeared a moment later with a container of numberless white, red, green, blue and black poker chips. She set it down and pulled out the two rows of each white, red and green. "Whites are ten, red twenty and green thirty."

I nodded in agreement, shuffling the cards while she equally separated the chips. I glanced up through my lashes at Rosalie. If anyone had told me two years ago that in twenty-four hours, I would have to hide Rosalie Hale in my shower, sneak her into my room, let her drive me here and played card games with her after she was a guard for me, I would have laughed.

In twenty-four hours, I had gotten closer to Rosalie than I did when they lived in Forks. That was probably due to having her see me naked, of course, but still. We had actually…bonded more over the past day and I kind of enjoyed it, really.

If Rosalie was like this the entire time, I had no doubt in my mind she would become a friend to me rather quickly.

I bridged the cards and then turned to the pouting Tanya behind me. "Will you at least be the dealer?" I asked with my best puppy-dog eyes.

The vampire reluctantly grabbed the cards with a sigh and passed them out between Rosalie and me. I grabbed my cards, as did Rosalie, and glanced at them. Damn, only a two pair. Oh well, I could play that off easily.

I tossed in a white chip. "I'll bid ten," I said.

"I'll raise you twenty." She tossed in a blue.

"Feeling lucky are we?"

She shrugged. "Maybe."

I raised a brow and said, "I'll raise your twenty thirty." I tossed in a green chip. Rosalie raised her brow, but said nothing to the raise.

Alice moved closer to the game, looking at us with interest. "Bella?" she suddenly asked.

"Yes?"

"How do you expect to beat Rosalie's three of a kind with your two pair?"

"Alice!" we called.

The room chuckled; clearly they liked that the little evil Cullen got back at us for making them stand in a circle for so long—even though they really did deserve it and I was considering another round of it. Alice gave an innocent smile while I threw my cards down.

"We have to start all over," I huffed.

Tanya chuckled, but started to deal the cards while Rosalie again parted the chips. While they did, Alice spoke up again, "Bella?"

"What?"

She smiled in amusement and cocked her head. "How did you and Tanya meet?" she asked. I paused as did Tanya. "I didn't see it, so I would like to know how it happened. If it was romantic and all or not."

The Cullens, actually, seemed interested in the story even though Edward obviously tuned out immediately. Rosalie glanced up and flickered her eyes between us. "How did you two actually meet?"

I turned to the blonde dealing and raised my brow. "Are you still ignoring me so much that you won't want to tell it at all?" I teased.

Tanya rolled her eyes with a huff and set down the cards. "We can both tell, Bella," she said. She turned her attention to Alice. "It was about six weeks after they arrived and we had yet to hear of them being here. Kate was being annoying after breaking a window and I decided to get a break and go down to the bookstore."

I nodded. "I read most of my books during chemo or when we waited for our appointments, so I was going down there to show Frank—a really nice older guy who goes to the chemo room to talk to the patients—the bookstore since he'd never seen it while getting books." I glanced at Tanya. "We were already there when Tanya arrived, and Frank and I had split up to do our own things in there when I walked around a corner and bumped into her.

"At first," I said, "I thought I had bumped into a wall before I realized it was actually a person."

"A wall I am not."

I shrugged. "Say that when you are a human running into a vampire."

She rolled her eyes at me and gave me a gentle shove, and continued for me, "Anyway, I was trying to keep her from apologizing for it when I saw her eyes." She smiled. "Obviously, I was stunned from both meeting my mate, but from also how beautiful she was. It was during that, though, I realized how lonely I actually had been in my life until that moment and that she completed it without actually saying a full sentence to me." She took my hand. "I was hooked."

"And I was thinking, 'Well, fuck another one'." The room chuckled and Tanya gave me a gentle push, biting her lower lip playfully. I smiled at her, and continued. "I actually was thinking a lot of thoughts at the moment, but that really sums it all up. I had felt the bond form, but as a human I wasn't aware of it and hadn't been effected by it. So, my only thought was to get this freaking vampire off my tail before she decided I would be an awesome person to get to know." I gave her a small look. "Obviously that didn't work since she followed me around the store like a lost puppy."

Tanya frowned while the others chuckled. "I wasn't a lost puppy," she growled. "I was simply trying to get to know you without freaking you out."

"Mission accomplished."

She hit me again. "Anyway," she drawled, "while I was asking her—"

"Interrogating," I clarified.

She rolled her eyes. "While I was asking her questions, one of the first things I learned was that she wouldn't be living here permanently, only temporarily. It was after that that I started to question my decision of not kidnapping her and holding her hostage, but I pressed on despite how pleasing the thought was."

"I, meanwhile, was wondering if she was worried her huffing bag with legs was possibly going to leave soon—"

"Must you kid about everything?"

"No, I was actually thinking that."

"Oh…Really?"

"I was a free dose of cocaine then."

"…okay…"

"Anyway…" Rosalie urged, motioning with her hand for us to continue our story instead of be sidetracked by my actually true comment.

"Oh, right," I said. "So, after I settled her nerves of possibly staying for a year or so, she settled down from her panic attack—"

Tanya growled.

"—and she went on to ask me about my education, what I was doing up here…blah, blah, blah. I was, meanwhile, trying to get out of the conversation or at least intervene her questions with my own to keep her from actually finding out who I was as I recognized her as your cousin and didn't want to start something again, or discovering my illness."

"It was then Frank showed up," she said. "He honestly freaked me out by calling Bella his girlfriend. I mean, he is much older than her, but it still worried me until I realized he was just teasing."

I nodded. "After that I had Frank and I run the hell out of there after we paid. Which, afterwards, Frank insisted on telling me that Tanya was hot for me that I utterly denied while Tanya—"

"—called home to inform my family that I had just found my mate to keep myself from running after her."

"You would have too had you not," I said.

"Shut-up," she hissed, giving my hand an affectionate squeeze. "You caused me enough pain in my ass trying to keep people from flirting with you, or having to deal with your obliviousness to my best seduction tricks."

"Oh, I noticed them," I said, "I just didn't fall for them."

Kate started laughing while Tanya growled and pulled me into her arms. I yelped in surprise, but didn't resist as she set me between her legs and kissed all over my face and hair. "At least you didn't go over a month before you caved," she grumbled.

"Would have been sooner without Charlie," Irina spoke up.

"Or longer," Kate smirked, "without the Pack, Frank or Max giving her a nice nudge in your direction."

I waved my hand dismissively towards her. "Whatever," I grumbled, snuggling myself into Tanya's chest.

She rested her chin on my shoulder happily and let her arms around me tighten just a fraction more. I picked up the cards she had dealt to me and Rosalie picked up hers.

I was about to throw in a few chips when I stopped and looked at Alice. Rosalie, seeming to catch onto what I was thinking, turned her attention to the little Cullen and furrowed her brow. Alice, however, just smiled and giggled. "I won't say anything."

I nodded. "Good."

I tossed two blue chips into the pile.

"I would never say anything about Rosalie having nothing and you a two pair."

"ALICE!"

So, thanks to Alice, it took about an hour for Rosalie and me to finally play a game of poker all the way through without her interrupting during an either intense moment or during the beginning of the game. I—of course—had dutifully won the game with a swift bluff when I had nothing.

After that, Emmett and Kate joined in on the game and soon all four of us were going head to head and started to gamble actual items like watches, necklaces and IOUs again.

I threw in one just as an experiment that said, "I owe you a chance to get me something to eat" and, I was right when the three vampires around me got a little fiercer in winning the current pile for it.

So, I drew out the game and added more with things like backrubs, foot massages, drinks, trips to Maria's and anything else I could think of. It was evil, yes, but when you have a houseful of vampires ready to win your affections by any means necessary, why not?

I was surprised by how the IOUs were distributed. Instead of winning and keeping them for themselves, they would throw in some they were willing to sacrifice because they wanted another IOU in the pile. Eventually, every vampire in the group had won at least two IOUs and it was after that more started to join in to play. Jasper and Alice were pretty into the idea of getting an IOU I wrote, and Esme even joined. She had to be desperate to get back my affections after seeing how I reacted to her, and frankly I didn't blame her.

Not to mention, I got to see her play mean in poker with her determination to win several of those little things.

In the end, I had won the final game with no IOUs from me, but a few from Jasper, Emmett, Kate and Esme, about $5,000 dollars' worth in chips and a lot of satisfaction from all the IOUs I gave out.

At least every vampire had one.

But Esme, holy crap, Esme had the most with five. She was very determined to get the ones that said she could make me dinner or lunch or breakfast, and won them she did.

So, I was satisfied when the game ended and we put everything away. I stuffed the IOUs into my purse with the others that were left over from the last poker game, and lounged on the couch with Tanya's lap as my pillow and Jasper's as my footrest.

I was happily receiving the foot rub from the man that he had won without any complaint while I watched a movie with the rest of the vampires. I was glad that Jasper had lost his hesitance around me. Maybe he had more confidence in himself and it allowed him to be around me, or maybe his claiming instincts overruled his instincts to feed, but either way, I was just glad he could be around me without being in pain.

My eyelids were growing heavier by the second; completely at ease with the arrangement. The fingers gliding through my hair affectionately just added to the relaxation I was feeling. If I could, I had no doubt I would have been purring.

At least, I would have been until my phone went off. "Who let the dogs out?! Who? Who? Who?..."

I groaned while every vampire stopped to look at me. I reached into my pocket, fumbling for a second, before I brought the phone out of my pocket. I put it to my ear. "What?"

"Is that really how you greet the phone now, Bella? Just a nice, old fashioned, 'what'? Not that nice of a greeting now, is it?" Jake teased through the phone.

I rolled my eyes. "I chose the ringtone for you guys specifically so I didn't need to answer the phone in a fake nice tone, and just get straight to the point, Jake," I said.

"Ah-ha!" Seth called. "So you aren't denying that it's because you are incredibly cliché when it comes to your ringtones? By the way you are on speaker."

Having figured out the last part myself, I rolled my eyes, but glided over it. "Cliché?" I snorted. "Please."

"Bella, your ringtone for your doctor is Ways To Go, your ringtone for us is Who Let the Dogs Out and Charlie's is the Cops Theme Song. Please, say again how that isn't cliché?" Paul deadpanned.

"Would you rather I had a ringtone that was completely depressing and dark instead? I can make it happen."

"My lips are sealed."

I nodded. "I thought so. Now again…What?"

"Oh, Bella, always so cheery," Quil called in the background.

"I'm not just cheery," I said, "I'm the drug dealer of cheery."

"Sure."

I snuggled my head further into Tanya's lap, making her pause in her ministrations for a moment before I settled down and continued. "Is there any specific reason for why you are calling, or are you just trying to annoy me?"

"Isn't calling you just to annoy you technically a reason of calling?" Jake asked.

I rolled my eyes and decided to brush past the comment and press for the real matter of them calling, "Alright, tell me why you decided to call me and waste my time."

I got a mental image of him holding up his hands. "Alright, alright," he said, "no need to be snappy here." There was a small murmur on the other side and then, "We're calling because…Well, there happens to be a small opening at the moment and were wondering if we could maybe come up and visit?"

I immediately sat-up at attention; as did every vampires' interest. "You have time to come up to Denali?" I asked surprised. While we had talked to the Pack about maybe some time between where we could visit, or they had free time to come up, we hadn't really made any kind of plans for it.

We were either both busy or just had strange schedules. And, with the possible new treatment, everyone agreed it wouldn't be a good idea to plan anything with me traveling. Having this was a surprise, a pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless.

"I think the Reservation can manage without a few of us here for a few days or so," Sam spoke up. "Besides, I want to meet these vampires you are currently involved with and make sure they know of what can happen if they overstep the line like a freaking, bloody, overly—"

Before he could continue, Kate called, "Said vampires are right here and can hear you perfectly!"

Silence…

"My bad."

"Geeze, Bells, you could've warned us that this was a public call," Jared said. "I could've gone onto so many trade secrets that only you and us are supposed to know."

I snorted. "Please, Jared," I scoffed, "the only trade secret you have is the reality that you have a vagina instead of a dick."

"Burn!"

"Shut-up!"

"How exactly does Bella know that and not us?"

"Were you two secretly doing each other?"

"Hey, if they were, then at least Bella's got practice!"

Laughter burst through the phone while Tanya scowled, not exactly liking the comments while I bit my lip. "OW! EMILY!" It was so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear.

"Next word I hear about Bella having sex will have the speaker earning more than just a pan to the back of the head. All of you know very well that those jokes are only for our group, and if I hear one more word about it, I will castrate all of you and, Leah, I will have your boobs for it. Got it?"

"Yes…" they grumbled.

I grinned, chuckling. "Ems, are you sure you aren't the actual Alpha of the Pack?" I teased.

"More like the mother, sweetheart," she replied. "And, since these dogs can't keep their minds out of heat as it seems, I'll get to the point. How does next Friday sound? Charlie said it was alright, but we wanted to make sure you were fine with that."

I nodded, furrowing my brow. "That sounds fine, but…What do you mean they can't keep their heads out of heat? Have they made more comments than usual today or something?"

"Earlier I found Paul humping my armchair from a dare Quil gave him, and Leah discussing oral with a chick an hour ago."

"Ah…Why the armchair?"

"Don't know, didn't want to. We'll see you later, Bells, alright?"

"Sure thing, Ems."

"Love ya, girl, but I gotta get back to cooking."

"BYE, BELLA!"

"Later, guys…Make sure Paul doesn't jump the next deer he sees, kay?" I asked, earning a few snickers from both the room and the line.

"It was just a—"

I hung up and stuffed the phone into my pocket. The room was silent and (awkwardly) paid attention my every move while I stayed focused on putting the phone in my pocket—that was way harder than it should have been.

Then, "So…are we gonna have a puppy?"

I groaned. "Kate…"

I let out a slow, pensive breath while I sat on my bed, staring down at my phone. I knew I had to tell the Pack that the Cullens were here, if not tonight then tomorrow, but I had to tell them at some point; though tonight would get it over with.

I groaned, dropping my phone to lie flat on my back, arm draped over my eyes to stare at the crook of my elbow to think of the shitty situation. The first thing about the situation was how the Pack and Cullens had left off with each other. They completely and utterly hated the other family; wanting them dead and gone—the Pack more so now than ever.

Another thing was how the Pack had really no relationship with the Denalis at all. They had never met them, and they weren't fully trusting on them, but they were willing to accept them for me—most likely from knowing Tanya was my mate. However—while that may be—they could hate the Denalis for even letting the Cullens up here. I had no doubt that would be something in their heads.

Another thing to consider was that not only did I have two families fighting each other for a mark on me, I would be bringing another group of super naturals that would be seen as possible threats. The Pack was my family, along with the Denalis, and it would be a living Hell if the three families went to war with each other.

It would be a blood bath before—

"You look pensive." I jumped when a body was suddenly lying next to mine. Legs entangled with mine and an arm draped lazily over my abdomen. Soft lips pressed a kiss into my jaw. "You forgot I was coming, didn't you?"

I bit my lip and mentally cursed myself for forgetting that we agreed Tanya would come tonight. I must have been more distracted than I originally thought.

I turned over, removing my arm from my face to look at her, with a sigh. "Sorry."

She nodded and glanced at my phone between us. "If you want, I could…" She jerked her head to the window and removed her arm slightly.

I shook my head negatively; throwing my arm over her as an indication to stay. "No," I said. I moved closer and rolled us over, making her lie on her back while I laid my entire weight on her front, resting my head on her shoulder with a sigh. "Stay. I need some clarity here."

She nodded, wrapping her other arm around me to twist the ends of my hair with her finger tips. "What do you need clarity with, love?"

"Math."

I could feel her frown. "Math? You need clarity with math?"

I nodded, sighing. "Yeah, a simple, but annoying equation," I grumbled. I wiggled my body to press further into hers.

She hummed. "What would this simple and annoying equation be?" she asked. She pulled back just a little to give me a teasing smirk. "It isn't 'solve for x' is it?"

I snorted, grimacing. "Tanya, I got my GED. I think I know how to solve for x," I smirked.

She kissed my forehead. "Alright, then, what is the problem?"

"A group of teen frozen, protective shifters that helped me through depression who hate the Cullens plus two vampire families that are already at war with each other for a connection with me, with one family already hating the shifters."

"Oh, I see."

I nodded, taking in a deep breath. "You see my dilemma," I grumbled.

She hummed, twirling my hair around her fingertips. "Have you spoken to the Pack about the Cullens, yet?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No," I said, "that was what I was struggling with when you got here. I don't really know how to deal with it."

"I see," she murmured. Her fingers massaged my scalp. "I think being completely honest with them would be the best way to go about it. Just tell them the honest truth. The Cullens arrived three days ago, and will be here when they arrive next week."

I groaned. "But they'll be stubborn about it. I wouldn't be surprised if they came early just to kick their asses."

"If they do that, then remind them what they will be risking from such an action," she reasoned. "Besides, I doubt they would do anything to upset you."

I sighed. She did have a point there. The Pack did everything they could to keep me happy—even threaten to beat the crap out of each other if someone in the Pack made me cry or upset in some way. This would be no different and was just a matter of sucking it up and getting through it…hopefully.

I nodded. "You're right," I agreed. "They wouldn't."

She nodded, removing one of her hands from around me to grab my phone. She held it towards me. "Do you want to call them now?"

I shook my head, adjusting myself to be entangled with her completely and sighed. "No," I said, "I just want to cuddle for a little."

She nodded with a content hum and smile. She dropped my phone and held me impossibly closer to her body. "Now that," she smiled, "I can definitely do."